With its temperate climate and modest altitudes, arresting scenery and welcoming pit stops, not to mention compelling history in every direction, Britain is a fantastic destination for walkers.

Oodles of marked paths will have you treading through an array of richly photogenic land and seascapes. Some routes can be done in a few hours. Others take weeks to complete (stopping at camp sites and/or inns and B&Bs en route).

Today, we’re at one of England’s most alluring hiking magnets: the quaint little Derbyshire village of Edale in the Peak District National Park.

Handily located on the railway line between Sheffield and Manchester, it’s the start point of one of the long-distance national trails: the Pennine Way, which traverses the Pennines, a rugged range of hills labelled “the backbone of Britain” and rising to an elevation of 893m at their highest point.

Reaching that landmark — Cross Fell — is a highlight of the Pennine Way, which snakes 429km between Edale and Kirk Yeltholm, a village in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland. Incidentally, as well as being the northernmost point of the Pennine Way, Kirk Yeltholm marks the southern limit of the 864km-long Scottish National Trail.

While these distances can intimidate most walkers, the routes are subdivided into shorter sections that seem more doable and some link with other, easier circular paths.

Take today, for example. While we’d need to allocate at least three weeks to hike all the way from Edale to Kirk Yeltholm — with nights set aside for rest and refuelling in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Northumberland — we enjoy a flavour of the Pennine Way’s scenic splendour on one invigorating Sunday.

Getting off the train at Edale station, about 245m above sea level, we stroll a narrow country lane, passing a stone-built parish church — where a service is taking place — and pausing by The Old Nags Head, a 16th-century inn that has poured many a celebratory pint for hikers who’ve completed the Pennine Way.

A bit later, the pub will be dishing up Sunday roasts, which gives us food for thought and has us licking our lips, although we have packed a lunch, which we plan to have while perched on one of the quirky gritstone formations strewn across Kinder Scout, a 636m-high plateau at the Peak District’s loftiest (and often most windswept) part.

The loop we’re doing — which will bring us back to Edale in about four or five hours — initially runs parallel with the Pennine Way and we follow its marked signs through undulating, sheep-grazed fields. Before long we’re treading across an ancient stone packhorse bridge spanning the Noe, one of the many streams and rivers carving through the Peak District.

From here, we begin to ascend Jacob’s Ladder, a steep, winding flight of stone steps apparently named after an 18th-century farmer, Jacob Marshall. Some say he cut the steps here to smooth the passage for himself and his horses between his farmland and the nearby hamlets.

As we scale Jacob’s Ladder, we glance across towards Kinder Downfall, which is touted as the Peak District’s tallest waterfall, tumbling 30m over a boulder-studded slope. But we’re here during a dry period and there’s no sign of any water falling. In the northern winter, after the autumn rains, it occasionally freezes over, attracting ice climbers and other daredevils.

We take a breather at the top of Jacob’s Ladder with contrasting terrain before us. One moment, we’re gazing over moors etched with peat, heather and weird and wonderful outcrops eroded by the elements; the next we’re entranced by the verdant quilted fields flanking the Vale of Edale. A few paragliders hover in the distance. A bird of prey — a buzzard, perhaps — has its wings spread above.

Before long, we are tucking into that picnic up on Kinder Scout and afterwards, rejuvenated, we follow the rugged path across the plateau and descend through the fields to Edale, where the village pub and a couple of cafes are serving refreshments.

There are people of all ages and walking abilities hiking today, including groups on charity walks and multi-generational families. As well as English, I hear German, Polish and Spanish conversations. It never feels overly crowded, however, and there’s ample space to find solitude and to appreciate the life-affirming scenery in peace and tranquility.

I’d say we all owe a debt of gratitude to the hundreds of men and women who participated in the Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout, a protest on April 24, 1932. At the time, swathes of privately owned land in Britain were out of bounds to the general public, and much of the Kinder area was kept exclusively for grouse shooting by its landowner, the Duke of Devonshire.

But the rebellious walkers —mostly from the industrialised Manchester and Sheffield areas — defied the duke’s gamekeepers to stake their claim to roam freely in the fresh countryside air. Several protesters were arrested and five were given prison sentences, sparking a national outcry that set in motion a series of changes giving ordinary folk greater access rights to the wild open country.

A key move was the establishment of 10 national parks in the 1950s, starting with the Peak District in 1951 (there are now 15 national parks). Conceived by activist journalist Tom Stephenson, the Pennine Way became the first national trail, officially launched on April 24, 1965 — exactly 33 years after the Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout.

A Lancashire man, Stephenson was a prominent member — a secretary and first full-time employee — of the Ramblers Association, which had been created on January 1, 1935. It remains the nation’s leading walking charity, continuing to keep the authorities on their toes and encouraging people to embrace walking “whether you are a wild-weather wanderer, a solitary stroller, a hardcore hiker or a weekend walk-and-talker”.

Check out its website for more than 4000 tried-and-tested routes across England, Scotland and Wales — including some superb ones here in the always-rewarding Peak District.

fact file + To help plan a trip to Britain, see visitbritain.com

+ For more information on visiting the Peak District, see visitpeakdistrict.com + For tips on Britain’s walking routes and trails, see nationaltrail.co.uk and ramblers.org.uk